Western Digital Corporation develops, manufactures, and sells data storage devices and solutions worldwide. It offers client devices, including hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) for computing devices, such as desktop and notebook PCs, security surveillance systems, gaming consoles, and set top boxes; flash-based embedded storage products for mobile phones, tablets, notebook PCs, and other portable and wearable devices, as well as automotive, IoT, industrial, and connected home applications; flash-based memory wafers; and embedded storage solutions and iNAND embedded flash products, such as multi-chip package solutions. The company also provides data center devices and solutions comprising enterprise helium hard drives; enterprise SSDs consisting of flash-based SSDs and software solutions for use in enterprise servers, online transactions, data analysis, and other enterprise applications; data center solutions, including HDDs and drive configurations for use in data storage systems and tiered storage models; system solutions that offer petabyte scalable capacity; and data storage platforms and systems. In addition, it offers client solution, such as external HDD storage products in mobile and desktop form; client SSDs; removable cards used in consumer devices comprising mobile phones, tablets, imaging systems, still cameras, action video cameras, and security surveillance systems; universal serial bus flash drives used in the computing and consumer markets; and wireless drive products for in-field back up of created content, as well as wireless streaming of high-definition movies, photos, music and documents to tablets, smartphones, and personal computers (PCs). The company sells its products under the HGST, SanDisk, and WD brands to original equipment manufacturers, distributors, resellers, cloud infrastructure players, and retailers. Western Digital Corporation was founded in 1970 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.

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Miscellaneous

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Frequently Asked Questions

What is Western Digital's stock symbol?

Western Digital trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "WDC."

How often does Western Digital pay dividends? What is the dividend yield for Western Digital?

Western Digital declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 29th will be given a dividend of $0.50 per share on Monday, April 15th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.24%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 28th. View Western Digital's Dividend History.

How will Western Digital's stock buyback program work?

Western Digital announced that its board has initiated a stock buyback plan on Thursday, July 26th 2018, which allows the company to repurchase $5,000,000,000.00 in outstanding shares, according to EventVestor. This repurchase authorization allows the company to repurchase up to 22.3% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company's board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

How were Western Digital's earnings last quarter?

Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC) posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January, 24th. The data storage provider reported $1.45 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.27 by $0.18. The data storage provider earned $4.23 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.26 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 4.34% and a return on equity of 28.88%. Western Digital's revenue was down 20.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.95 EPS. View Western Digital's Earnings History.

When is Western Digital's next earnings date?

What guidance has Western Digital issued on next quarter's earnings?

Western Digital updated its third quarter earnings guidance on Thursday, January, 24th. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of $0.40-0.60 for the period, compared to the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $1.06. The company issued revenue guidance of $3.6-3.8 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $3.89 billion.

What price target have analysts set for WDC?

28 brokerages have issued 1 year target prices for Western Digital's stock. Their forecasts range from $30.00 to $126.00. On average, they expect Western Digital's share price to reach $66.4091 in the next twelve months. This suggests a possible upside of 40.7% from the stock's current price. View Analyst Price Targets for Western Digital.

What is the consensus analysts' recommendation for Western Digital?

28 Wall Street analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for Western Digital in the last year. There are currently 1 sell rating, 15 hold ratings and 12 buy ratings for the stock, resulting in a consensus recommendation of "Hold." View Analyst Ratings for Western Digital.

What are Wall Street analysts saying about Western Digital stock?

Here are some recent quotes from research analysts about Western Digital stock:

1. According to Zacks Investment Research, "Western Digital is one of the largest HDD producers in the U.S. The company intends to temporarily reduce flash output. A declining trend in PC shipments is detrimental to business prospects of Western Digital, which continues to depend substantially on PC sales. The company is also facing challenges owing to NAND flash pricing, which is currently on the decline on account of oversupply and weaker-than-expected growth in end-market demand. Ballooning debt levels have also been troubling Western Digital for quite some time now. Moreover, stiff competition from peers with pricing pressure adds to woes. Shares of the company have underperformed the industry over the past one year. However, robust adoption of NVMe client SSDs, iNAND solutions and new design wins remain other positives." (1/26/2019)

2. Guggenheim analysts commented, "We continue to estimate WDC’s EPS cycling down to ~$10 in CY19E but believe that is far better than many believe, with risk that sentiment might not trough until NAND margins do in Mar/Jun-19 (our cyclical forecast for a year now), but with today’s stock price more than discounting that." (9/17/2018)

3. Maxim Group analysts commented, "Consistent with our published expectations, results & guidance make clear NAND flash down-cycle now playing out due to weak smartphone unit sales." (7/27/2018)

5. BTIG Research analysts commented, "WDC’s business continues to operate like a finely tuned machine. The demand environment for digital storage continues to be robust, margins remain elevated, the balance sheet continues to improve, and WDC continues to generate ample cash and post earnings upside. To the latter point, F18 EPS will likely end up being in striking distance of $15, capping off 18 months of upward revisions to consensus estimates that started at $6.00. However, for 12 of those months, the stock has been range bound, as each near-term earnings boost has been seen as a can-kick of the inevitable “normalization” (CEO Milligan’s words, not ours) of supply/demand dynamics. This surely will sound euphemistic to investors, in part because there is such disagreement as to whether or not we are in a New Normal (to what exactly are we normalizing?). Regardless, the truth is that growth in shipments and erosion of ASPs doesn’t spell doom for margins and can be a good thing in an elastic market, especially as cost declines from technology leadership will mitigate volatility. While sentiment continues to be concerned about what’s over the next hill, we remain convinced that “normalization” doesn’t change the fact that supply continues to face constraints while demand drivers continue to diversify." (4/29/2018)

Has Western Digital been receiving favorable news coverage?

News stories about WDC stock have trended somewhat positive recently, InfoTrie reports. InfoTrie identifies negative and positive news coverage by analyzing more than six thousand news and blog sources. The firm ranks coverage of publicly-traded companies on a scale of -5 to 5, with scores nearest to five being the most favorable. Western Digital earned a daily sentiment score of 1.0 on InfoTrie's scale. They also gave media headlines about the data storage provider a news buzz of 2.0 out of 10, meaning that recent news coverage is very unlikely to have an effect on the stock's share price in the near term.

Are investors shorting Western Digital?

Western Digital saw a increase in short interest in January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 20,114,466 shares, an increase of 12.4% from the January 15th total of 17,894,190 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 11,037,090 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 1.8 days. Currently, 7.1% of the company's shares are short sold. View Western Digital's Current Options Chain.

Which major investors are selling Western Digital stock?

WDC stock was sold by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including BlackRock Inc., Victory Capital Management Inc., Iridian Asset Management LLC CT, New York State Common Retirement Fund, Fort Pitt Capital Group LLC, WINTON GROUP Ltd, Nuveen Asset Management LLC and Villere ST Denis J & Co. LLC. Company insiders that have sold Western Digital company stock in the last year include Henry T Denero, Mark P Long, Matthew E Massengill, Michael Charles Ray, Michael D Lambert, Paula A Price, Srinivasan Sivaram and Stephen D Milligan. View Insider Buying and Selling for Western Digital.

Which major investors are buying Western Digital stock?

WDC stock was purchased by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund, American International Group Inc., DNB Asset Management AS, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, Alps Advisors Inc., First Trust Advisors LP, Voloridge Investment Management LLC and Duality Advisers LP. View Insider Buying and Selling for Western Digital.

How do I buy shares of Western Digital?

Shares of WDC can be purchased through any online brokerage account. Popular online brokerages with access to the U.S. stock market include Vanguard Brokerage Services, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, Scottrade, Fidelity and Charles Schwab.

What is Western Digital's stock price today?

One share of WDC stock can currently be purchased for approximately $47.19.

How big of a company is Western Digital?

Western Digital has a market capitalization of $13.73 billion and generates $20.65 billion in revenue each year. The data storage provider earns $675 million in net income (profit) each year or $13.51 on an earnings per share basis. Western Digital employs 71,600 workers across the globe.

MarketBeat Community Rating for Western Digital (NASDAQ WDC)

MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Western Digital and other stocks. Vote "Outperform" if you believe WDC will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote "Underperform" if you believe WDC will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.